Charles Johnson was driving with his close friend Larod Styles last week when their attorneys called with life-changing news. After more than 20 years, Cook County prosecutors had agreed that new fingerprint evidence cleared them and two others of a 1995 double murder at a Southwest Side used-car dealership.
Tears filled his eyes during the impromptu conference call, Johnson told reporters at a news conference Wednesday, just hours after a Cook County judge officially set aside their convictions. Standing with the three men were about 20 family members and friends, one wearing a T-shirt that read, "After 20 years you finally made it!!"
"I almost couldn’t see. They was like, ‘Don’t crash now, you’ve come too far,’" Johnson said. "I felt like the weight of the world was lifted off my shoulders."
Lawyers for the two men and their co-defendants, Lashawn Ezell and Troshawn McCoy, credited the decision to a sweeping change in approach to potential wrongful conviction cases under State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, who took over the county’s top prosecutor late last year.
The attorneys met last Monday with Foxx’s first assistant, Eric Sussman, a former federal prosecutor who, along with Foxx’s chief deputy, former federal prosecutor April Perry, are heading up a review of potential wrongful convictions, said Justin Barker, an attorney for Johnson. Two days later, prosecutors called the defense team to say they were dropping charges in the case, Barker said.
"The dismissal of these cases today illustrates my absolute commitment to ensuring that this office reviews and addresses any credible claim of wrongful conviction or actual innocence," Foxx said in a statement.
Chicago still faces dozens of wrongful conviction cases Hal Dardick
Dozens of wrongful conviction lawsuits still are pending against the city of Chicago, a high-level city attorney told aldermen Tuesday, even after a yearslong parade of settlements of such cases have already drained tens of millions of dollars from the pockets of taxpayers.
At least two of the…
Dozens of wrongful conviction lawsuits still are pending against the city of Chicago, a high-level city attorney told aldermen Tuesday, even after a yearslong parade of settlements of such cases have already drained tens of millions of dollars from the pockets of taxpayers.
At least two of the…
(Hal Dardick)
On Wednesday, cheers could be heard from family and supporters of the men through windows that separated Judge Domenica Stephenson’s courtroom gallery from the courtroom itself as she announced that the convictions were being vacated. The three men in court embraced their lawyers and family members — at least two dozen of whom had packed the courtroom — after the brief hearing.
"It’s finally over!" one family member cried outside court. "No more courtrooms. No more Menard (prison)."
Johnson and Styles were teenagers when they confessed to the December 1995 murders of Yousef Ali and Khalid Ibrahim, the co-owners of Elegant Auto Sales at 75th Street and Western Avenue. Johnson told Chicago police that he and his co-defendants planned to steal some cars from the lot and strip them for parts.
But Johnson’s lawyers argued that he had signed the confession only after he was told it was a routine document that would lead to his release. They said, too, that the details in confessions from the men, which formed the bulk of the prosecution’s case, did not match.
1995 double murder charges tossed Illinois Department of Corrections
Charles Johnson, left, was a teenager when he confessed, along with Larod Styles, right, to the 1995 killing of the co-owners of Elegant Auto Sales at 75th Street and Western Avenue.
Charles Johnson, left, was a teenager when he confessed, along with Larod Styles, right, to the 1995 killing of the co-owners of Elegant Auto Sales at 75th Street and Western Avenue.
(Illinois Department of Corrections)
The convictions began to give way in 2013, when the Illinois Appellate Court ordered an evidentiary hearing for Johnson after finding that crucial fingerprint evidence probably would lead to his acquittal if he was tried again. Last year, prosecutors for then-State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez threw out Johnson’s and Styles’ convictions, although they said they planned to retry the two. Both men eventually were freed last fall on $500,000 bail.
Ezell, who had been convicted only of armed robbery, had already completed his 20-year prison sentence.
McCoy, who has nearly finished serving his 55-year prison sentence, remained behind bars awaiting a hearing on his petition for a new trial.
Foxx, after an evaluation of the case, decided not to retry the men.
The key piece of evidence, according to Johnson’s lawyers, was a fingerprint lifted from the adhesive side of a "92" window sticker peeled from a stolen vehicle and discarded in the lot that matched a convicted drug dealer who lived just a block from where the vehicle was ditched. What’s more, after the trial, an eyewitness who was in the office at the time of the slayings told an investigator for the men that the two co-owners had been receiving threatening phone calls over a car sold to a known drug dealer.
The window stickers were discovered in evidence vaults by a prosecutor after a lengthy legal battle, the defense team said. Steven Drizin, of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, said the fingerprints were found on the sticky side of the decal only seven years ago, exonerating Johnson more than a decade after he had faced the death penalty.
"This is a powerful testament to some of the reasons why we abolished the death penalty here in Illinois," Drizin told reporters Wednesday.
Johnson and his defense team credited Johnson’s mother, Theresa, with tirelessly searching for a lawyer to take her son’s case, eventually catching Drizin’s attention.
"She was the force behind what you see today," Barker said.
"I went everywhere trying to seek help for my son, and everybody would just close the door practically in my face," Theresa Johnson told reporters. "My heart is just so full right now. I just thank God for everything."
sschmadeke@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @SteveSchmadeke
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